October 2011

It's high time we devoted an entire show to the music of San Francisco's elegant dark diva JILL TRACY — and there's no better time to do that than Halloween. We consider her a Bay area treasure...like Grafeo coffee, Scharffen Berger chocolates, and fine Napa Cabernets.

As a lyricist and songwriter, Jill Tracy plies the literary currents popularized by Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker, Edward Gorey and other 19th and 20th century storytellers of the netherworld: spinners of tales of the mysterious, the strange, and the macabre.

Her sound begins with an unadorned dark cabaret trio of contrabass, drums and parlor piano; it expands on recordings into the Malcontent Orchestra: violin, viola, cello, and low woodwinds, plus guitar, Chapman stick, electric bass, harmonium and the odd sarod. She calls it "Post-Classical Noir" and glams, goths and Dark Romantics of all ages love her with a crimson passion.

Building on an image-rich film noir foundation, she embroiders darkly seductive rhythms and a chilled layer of sly sophistication, delivered in a beguiling femme fatale vocal style that keeps you hanging onto every sinister turn of phrase.

Over the last 12 years, she's created three superb albums of original songs, instrumental soundtracks for Nosfertatu and other short films, and a powerful instrumental version of her 2008 masterpiece, The Bittersweet Constrain.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a potion brewed from dark Jill Tracy magick, including songs and instrumentals from Diabolical Streak and The Bittersweet Constrain, music from the soundtrack to Nervous96, and Under the Fate of the Blue Moon — "a waltz to make wishes come true."

HAUNTED — a JILL TRACY conjuration for Halloween...on this transmission...of Hearts of Space.

After the brilliant light and intensive energy of summer, the natural world cools and contracts. In the dimming days of autumn, we begin our descent into the dark months, and the music of the season becomes more somber. As the leaves wither and fall, we pass through a period marked by the letter "d": deflation...decomposition...decay. In music, it's the sound of desaturated timbres, darkening harmonies and descending progressions.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we reflect the sound of the season on a program called DECOMPRESSION. Music is by PATRICK O'HEARN, MICHAEL DE SALEM, DAVID HELPLING & JON JENKINS, DAVID ARKENSTONE, GILES REAVES, and MOBY.

You're listening to the first wholly electronic musical instrument: the theremin, invented in 1920 by a 21-year old Russian physics student named LEV TERMEN. It emerged out of Russian government research into proximity sensors. Today, every smartphone has them, but back then it was cutting-edge technology.

No less a historical figure than VLADIMIR LENIN was so impressed by the theremin that he took lessons to play it, and sent young Termen around the world to demonstrate it as an example of Russian scientific achievement.

Lev Terman arrived in New York in 1927 and became LEON THEREMIN. The original name for his instrument was the aetherphone or etherophone, later the Theremin and Thereminvox. It was the first musical instrument played entirely without touching: metal wands for pitch and volume are controlled by the position and movement of the hands and body in air, which makes it very difficult to play.

The first real virtuoso of the theremin was a former Russian violinist named CLARA ROCKMORE, who developed a technique called aerial fingering. With this, she could play Romantic classics like this Rachmaninoff Vocalise, as well as the eerie sci-fi soundtracks for which the instrument became known. The late ROBERT MOOG of Moog synthesizer fame built theremins and sold theremin kits, and today the instrument remains a kind of cult classic among electronic musicians.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space, the theremin and some of its ethereal electronic descendants, on a program called ETHEROPHONIC. Music is by CLARA ROCKMORE, ARMEN RA, GEVORG DABAGIAN, DJIVAN GASPARYAN, MICHAEL MUSED, MAITREYA, BERNARD XOLOTL & DANIEL KOBIALKA, and ROBERT MARGOULEFF & MALCOLM CECIL.

We're in the twilight time in the Northern hemisphere. As the autumn shadows grow longer and the light dims out on the western mesas, the sound of the Native American cedar flute once again drifts across the canyons. Soft and reverent, with an atmosphere of sweet melancholy, it echoes a quiet, reflective space within us.

For centuries, the cedar flute was used for courtship and healing by the southwestern tribes. Today it's part of the Native American music genre, and the core instrument of a much-loved subgenre of Ambient music made by native and western musicians, with its own summer music festival in Zion Canyon National Park.

On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, we revisit the southwestern soundscape and the cedar flute, on a program called TWILIGHT EARTH 4. Music is by SCOTT AUGUST, DEBORAH MARTIN & ERIK WØLLO, CHAD KETTERING, ANN LICATER, PAUL ADAMS, RANDY GRANGER, and COYOTE OLDMAN.